A Special Easter Read
Special feature
The 1970s: A Seat on the Bench
Decades Series: Read the full series by Philip Gerard.
In the popular imagination, cultural pioneers often stand larger than life — charismatic figures who blaze a trail through adversity by sheer force of conviction and personality. Susie Marshall Sharp is the antithesis of that archetype in nearly every way, yet her career becomes a record of milestones achieved, barriers broken, and new precedents set in that most traditionally male profession, the law.
Sharp is the eldest of 10 children born to James Merritt “Jim” Sharp — the son of a Civil War veteran and farmer, who “read law” and, after a series of false starts, set up a legal office in Reidsville — and Annie Britt Blackwell Sharp, descended from slaveholding aristocracy. While still a teenager, Sh
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